This Red String About My Finger
by Hyakuyan
Summary: "What am I supposed to remember about you, exactly?" "That I'm Uzumaki Naruto...and that you love me." Naruto will do anything to make Kiba love him again, even if he has to let go of their past and start afresh. [I decided to rewrite this story. If you know the original and or want to read it, feel free to contact me and I'll think about reposting.] Rating is for later chapters.


**+This Red String About My Finger+**

**"I'm going to pick up the pieces, and build a Lego house. And if things go wrong, we can knock it down." – Ed Sheeran, ****_Lego House._**

**+A Painful Dream, or a Terrible Memory?+**

This was not the way it was supposed to go. It was the same as before.

The ground brought him down to kiss it as his knees buckled from under him, their weakness chasing all throughout his bones and his frame. Furious barking, deep, thunderous sounds went off at his left; shouts of his name went up.

"Kiba!"

"Inuzuka!"

He grit his teeth, grit his forehead in the dirt. His huffs of breath—or what remained, as his lungs refused to upkeep the air his diaphragm so desperately dragged in—rushed in his ears. He would not succumb to pain, even as it brutally shook him. He made certain to use the last dregs of his vision to glare menacingly, with pure hatred and ire at the head bursting and then snaking from his shoulder, with those putrid mud eyes and cracks throughout the face that came with the resurrected, horns twisting out the demonic rust of his skin and forehead.

Sakon spread his turquoise lips and bore his many jagged fangs, pale yellow and glistening with salivation as he cackled at Kiba's torment.

_You're not so strong are you?_

_You barely killed us the last time._

Kiba roared in pain as his other shoulder burst; these devil twins ensnared his throat with their necks, their bodies holding him down to the earth since his strength had failed him. He ground his forehead in the dirt to fight the pain, his breaking bones trembling as he trembled.

His eyes burned as he suffocated. The actions of his diaphragm proved useless to the power of Sakon and Ukon.

_This is what you get for getting in the way. Loving someone is a painful thing, isn't it?_

They constricted his throat; Kiba gagged, blind eyes snapping open and straining to see. Iron flooded his tongue as his throat crushed and his ribs dug into his flesh and his heart, puncturing and causing bleeding he was sure—he felt the cracks as the ground became closer.

_Fall into darkness, Kiba._

This…this was it: punished for loving someone when the world would not. His muscles would surely refuse to answer him in the next throng of seconds. He couldn't see; black clouds formed in his sight, blacking out what was already blurred.

He suddenly jerked up, onto his broken knees, blood caking on his face. He panted as he was allowed reprieve to breathe, slightly, his vision only returning to show him night and a moon.

What…what was that?

A red eye formed on the moon before him, swirling with infinite. His eyes strained wide as it locked gazes with him. An invisible yet tenacious force then wormed its way into his head and drilled into his brain, chewing at and on his mind and laughingabout it in his ears. Where he once heard his breath, he could only hear their laughter.

Kiba cried out, he shouted. He roared agony as his memories of he and the one he loved flashed before his eyes only to shatter.

Another voice spoke to him as it stole his memories away. _Let him go, let this world of Shinobi go. Only then will you will find peace._

The weight was thrown off him; a great roar of wind and a bright orange light flashed before his eyes as the intense suffocation fled his limp body. He slumped forward, the ground rushing up at him. Numbness pillowed his fall, his eyelids heavy with the pain of the dull throbbing of his skull.

"Kiba!"

That…That voice…

His heart was up in his skull, it seemed, as his brain pounded like the blood-pumping organ in his chest.

"Kiba!"

Someone flipped him over brusquely, and a bright orange light looked down on him, matching eyes the shape of cerulean ones he loved…or were they? He couldn't quite remember. He reached up to touch this precious person. The face twisted, squeezing thicker rivers of tears out of his beautiful eyes. Those lines on his cheeks were distorted by the tears coursing down his face and onto Kiba.

"I'm sorry…I'm sorry, it's all my fault."

Who was this, that held him so? That cried his name, if that was his name at all? Kiba knew him a moment ago, but he supposed his mind, as achy as it was, played tricks on him in his hurting. They were comforting, however, whoever this was, stroking his cheek and his hair, until their head fell against his chest, muttering something about promises.

"Promise me, Kiba. You have to promise."

Promises…the thought formed a lump in Kiba's throat, and burned the corners of his eyes as they began to lose sight to the wiles of weariness. Kiba's hearing went as well, and his name fell on his deaf ears, tears trailing down his own face as he slipped into darkness, unsure of who held him, where he was, and why the only thing he could hear was the laughter of demons.

_Promise me, Kiba. You have to promise. _

He bolted awake, cold sweat sheeting over his entire body as his alarm clock blared in his ears.

Quickly, quickly now; the last thing he wanted to do was wake his mother who insisted she live with him, even though he was twenty-seven. Something about, taking care of his dear old lady, even when she was so snappy, active—she worked as a ninja—and violent at her nigh on fifty years that he was pretty sure she scared off his father.

Or much worse—yet somehow sensibly more accurate—ate him.

Kiba fumbled around blindly and eventually slammed his palm on the snooze, flicking the alarm off right after to keep it from turning back on at random. He groaned in relief when silence settled over his house.

Kiba sighed, rubbing at his eye with the heel of his palm as he regulated his breathing. He sighed again, disentangling his body from the sheets and swinging his legs off the edge of the bed. His hot soles hit the chill of the floor.

He took his hand out his eye to actually glance at the time, his heart rate having calmed somewhat and his breathing having regulated. 6:30, it read. He had half an hour before he had to leave for work, and yet chose to take time, as he always did, to stare at the clock, lost and uncertain.

That dream had happened once again; a nightmare that plagued his nights every so often for the last decade. He was taking medicine for it, the terrors, and yet sometimes the dream conquered and threw the drugs under the rug.

The nightmare started the same and ended the same; if it were anymore similar in its successive repetitiousness, Kiba could've sworn it was his brain reliving a terrible memory. Maybe that's what it was, a memory. A memory in which he lost his memories; but of course, that's how everyone felt about their recurring night terrors.

Didn't they?

He groaned again, shoving up off the springs of his mattress, said springs creaking as he moved. He padded over to the bathroom, flicking on the light switch. He caught his reflection out the corner of his eye and paused to glance at himself.

Bags under his eyes which were red and swollen—he must've been crying in his sleep again—his dark brown shag slightly curled at the ends due to his restless sleep. He ran his fingers through his hair, blinking his tired eyes, wondering if a shower would restore the normalcy to his face.

That dream was getting rather troublesome. He sniffed, his sinuses having reacted to the tearful state of his bloodshot eyes.

A whimper at his side drew his attention; and as if the noise wasn't enough, a nose nudged his palm.

He looked down to find his large white companion, planting wet kisses against his fingers and then snuffling at his littlest.

Kiba sighed. Akamaru had an uncanny fascination for the red string he kept ringed around his little finger. Kiba had a fascination with it as well. Whenever he looked at it, it was as though it were trying to tell him something, and yet he couldn't stare at it for long.

It did to him what his dream would: it would make him cry, and ache in his heart.

Kiba turned his hand over to ruffle Akamaru's fur, staring at the dog, rather than his finger. The dog leaned into his touch, but before he got too comfortable with his fingers there, Kiba went to scratch him behind the ears.

"Did I wake you, Akamaru?" he asked. The dog blinked at him, eyes bright with intelligence and concern. How he had such a smart animal living in his house, he'd never know. "Everything's alright," Kiba assured him.

The dog snorted. Almost as if he didn't believe him.

Kiba patted the dog before deciding it time to turn on the shower. He could feel Akamaru staring at his back, though he never minded; he was used to the dog's over attentiveness when it came to his actions.

After showering and tying on his apron, Kiba shouted a quick good-bye to his mother before leaving the house. Soft panting from behind him caused him to turn and look back at the house, to find Akamaru and his tongue lolling out the side of his mouth as he followed him.

Kiba smiled and snapped, the dog's ears perking slightly. Akamaru broke into a slight gallop to catch up, tongue still lolling out the side of his mouth as he closed the distance between them and matched Kiba's pace when he arrived at his right side.

Kiba looked out ahead, and into the morning sky. The blue reminded him of something—someone's eyes, yet the clouds stagnant in the air seemed to obscure the memory. He thought of his dream, and a chill ran down his spine; the loss and uncertainty of earlier whispered in the back of his mind. He clenched his hand in his pocket, where the red string around his finger lay as much a part of his hand as the nails and skin and curious callouses he didn't quite remember gaining.

Despite, he decided with a sigh that whatever these things were trying to say would have to wait. He arrived at the grocery store, his second home for ten years and smiled at the sign. Taking the keys out of his pocket, that to him the manager entrusted, and opened up, ready for another busy day handling groceries.


End file.
